It's funny, she thinks, that she punched him after all this time.
She's slapped him, sure, for something he hadn't yet done, but this wasn't like that. She's just trying to keep him from being an idiot. She can't bear the thought of losing him, not now, not after so long. He's sure to be cross with her when he wakes. Bless.
River sits in the chair a good distance from him, hooking up cords and attaching electrodes. He taught her so many things. So many wonderful things. She's such a different person now than when she was a child, when she was Mels. Back then, she was full of energy and flippant resistance to authority. She tried to kill him, and then she saved him, because her parents couldn't bear to see him die. But that wasn't completely the truth, she knows. It was because he was so alive, even while dying. Because he tried to save her parents at the cost of his own life, proving to her that he was not this evil being that she had been taught to fear and murder. She gave her lives for him, and she was about to do it again.
It was funny to her, that she should repeatedly save the man she was raised to kill. It was the most hilarious form of irony, when she thought about it. Even more ironic was the fact that she fell in love with him.
She would never tell this version of him that they got married at Darillium. Technically married twice, once at Darillium and once on top of a pyramid while time was disintegrating, but she wasn't counting. The pyramid wedding didn't count anyway. Not really. Did it? She didn't think so. It was an alternate reality, after all.
And the best part was, she wouldn't change a second of it. She wouldn't change being kidnapped as a baby, or being kept prisoner by the Silence. Never would she regret being able to grow up beside her parents, or save the Doctor's life. Never.
There was so much pain, but also so much happiness. She remembered the last time she spoke to her father, one of the rare times when her emotionless shell broke away to reveal the vulnerable, lovestruck woman inside.
"Every time we meet I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him. But I know that every time I do he'll be one step further away."
The worst part about that, she thinks, is that he knew this was coming. Perhaps it was because he couldn't warn her, or didn't want to. Expecting it wouldn't have made it hurt any less. The anticipation might have even made it worse. So he didn't tell her, and maybe that was a blessing. But she sees the Doctor, this young Doctor, beginning to stir from his place on the floor, and she knows what she must do.